


Listless

by spacejargon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Deception, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 16:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13861200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacejargon/pseuds/spacejargon
Summary: Fresh from an exchange with Lucifer gone wrong, Castiel isn't quite...Castiel. Dean has yet to notice.





	Listless

Dean wanders the halls like a ghost at his first haunting—confused and listless, searching for a body of possession. From the shadows he’s watched, the lights low and Sam tucked away in his own bed for the night, Dean’s patrol no longer for the comfort of his brother reasoned within his mind as it is for his own.

He steps from the shadows when Dean passes by his door once again. “Dean,” he calls to him, meek and mild as he is pressed against the siding of the arch to the main entrance.

Dean looks up at him, the haggard look in his eyes evaporating only some when the chemical reaction producing the sweat that makes him reek starts to slow. Another scent, of dirt and what is undeniably musk, comes from him as soon as his name is called. The response of his body is much faster than his own eyes, including the hunch in his shoulders.

“Cas,” Dean ambles over with dark circles starting to carve themselves under his eyes. He stops at the archway. Leaning against the white above Castiel’s head, he offers a sly smile before he tears away, yawning.

The gesture is so childlike and innocent, just a sleepy human yawn that fizzles in Castiel’s brain with a reverent, possessive flair around the created memory. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” He pokes delicately at the subject, knowing from sifting through the memories at his disposal, watching Dean’s smile droop and a hand come up to rub at his eyes.

“It’s been a long day,” Dean tears away to yawn again, his eyes traveling back toward Sam's room. “Sam’ll be okay.”

“Of course,” Castiel is the first to act, stepping closer with the intent of shortening the gap between them. He would be a fool to think Dean isn’t alert behind drooping eyes and playing up the helpless act. The disgust is like a wrinkle in his nose—he can’t quite figure out why Dean would do such a thing.

“So,” Dean’s eyes predictably flicker down to Castiel’s lips before meeting his eyes once again. “What’re you doing up? Everything okay with you?”

The utmost sincerity in his voice is heartbreaking.

Castiel surmises a smile and lets it fade after it lingers for a moment, frowning for just a second longer than normal. It catches Dean’s attention the way it should before he can speak. “I’m fine, Dean.”

“Yeah, and I’m the pizza guy. You look like you’re bothered by something.” Dean inches closer, his breaths already felt from the distance but now up close, it feels like every pore gets a taste of beer on his breath mixed with the salty unease in every inch of him. He smells like poison. “Wanna share?”

Castiel mimics Dean’s actions and watches Dean’s lips, to the point of making him lick them before Castiel brings his eyes to Dean’s. “Not really,” he pushes the excuse halfheartedly, keeping eye contact in the silent game that has developed between them. Instead, he pushes forward until they’re inches apart and while Castiel doesn’t need to breathe, he mimics Dean’s patterned breaths all too easily at a much slower rate.

Dean’s eyes lower and his eyelashes are easily visible, quick to be counted in the breaths that pass between them. The silence is underwhelming. “Thanks. For everything today.”

Castiel’s lips quirk in an expression not meant to be shared. Dean’s heart rate begins to warble off path. “Do you mean it?” he asks with no hint of malice, rather a teasing sort of lilt to the rough cut of his voice that Dean seems to be hypnotized by. “You disobeyed me, I—” He catches himself just as the look in Dean’s eyes changes, knowing he sounds wrong for this sort of game. “You ignored my warnings.”

“'Disobeyed’?” Dean’s pulse thunders in Castiel’s ears. It’s so _loud,_ how can anyone sleep with that racket? “Where’d that come from?”

The bashful angle does not suit Castiel. A chiding warning comes from his head, dismissed from the fog it emerges from. “No, it’s—it’s nothing. I...” Making a point of his distraction, his eyes wander from Dean’s to his lips and he mimics, sucking in his lower lip to graze it with his teeth.

Dean is the first to move, bracing himself against the archway above and leans forward, giving no time to counting seconds that tick by when Castiel finds himself in a kiss. It’s not as rough as expected, moving in a sinuous, winding rhythm that has a callused palm against Castiel’s cheek and fingers stretching into his hair.

The spark in his head just behind his eyes short-circuits him like a clock that’s run out of time before being wound up again. Dean’s hand doesn’t move but the other does for sliding up Castiel’s hipbone to within his trench coat, resting at his ribs.

Dean’s kisses are excruciatingly tender for a man of his stature. They make no...sense. And while playing a convincing game, Castiel himself has forgotten how to respond because his own game has been trumped, now made a mockery of the warnings unheeded.

“Cas?” Dean pulls away with a worried narrow of his eyes, searching Castiel’s. He’ll never find what he’s looking for. “You okay, buddy?”

If only he knew. Maybe it would be funnier if he did.

His fingers tap on Castiel’s ribs, not moving save for his pulse echoing in the tips, translating to Castiel’s skin like runes carved in cuneiform clues. “Sorry, I...” Castiel’s eyes close and scrunch shut tightly as he thinks to expel other thoughts that belong, but not at this moment. “You made me think you were throwing yourself willingly into Lucifer’s cage.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Dean’s thumb is stroking his cheek. The gesture is uneven and strange. “Look, I know you didn’t want me to do it, but I had to find Sam. I can’t just leave him whenever he disappears.”

Castiel’s eyes cast themselves to the floor because it’s what Castiel would’ve done in this moment. He doesn’t speak, biting on the inside of his cheek to stifle the words that come to him immediately as Dean watches him intently. The gesture doesn’t last for long as Castiel glances up, Dean’s fingers on the fabric of his shirt over his ribs. The effect is distracting every last thought until his attention snaps up and he quickly stops any line of thought before it can occur.

Dean kisses him back just as quickly, sucking in a breath as the kisses aren’t as chaste as a dry lip press but a wetter taste of saliva and tongue when Dean’s eyes fall shut. Castiel watches him move, their lips connected and every breath between them is shared, fascinated and his unfettered inhibitions mollified.

“Dean,” Castiel’s voice slips from his teeth as Dean back him against the wall, his lips moving in between breaths. _“Dean.”_ He makes the noise in the distinct pitch to catch the right attention.

Dean, however, doesn’t listen. Odd—it strikes him as off when Dean’s name doesn’t rouse attention but a line of lips trailing down his jaw. A scrape of teeth elicit a shudder that creeps from nowhere, this body finely attuned to when the lips attach to his neck and Dean’s teeth graze and nip over the side of his throat.

The position feels so _vulnerable_ it makes Castiel—not Castiel squirm in his vessel’s skin. His fingers flex and twitch at his sides until the hand from his cheek reaches for one and intertwines with anxious, restless fingers. How _strange_ and _wrong_ that his breaths hitch and his heart spikes with a mind of its own. One hand tangles in Dean’s hair, pressing him closer than the scratch of his teeth already are, noises coming from his throat like a musical of breaking strings.

The look on Dean’s face is predatory, mixed in with the honed look of an innocent country boy he knows him not to be. “Cas, slow down,” he swallows breaths when he pulls away from Castiel’s violated throat, his pupils blown wide with what can only be the human reaction of desire before he steals another kiss. And another.

Castiel reacts just as strongly to this, reaching for the collar of Dean’s shirt while his eyes are beguiling, accented by the dimmed lamp light coming from the main room. Dean takes the bait just as easily too, the kisses becoming rougher and deeper as a tongue and teeth actively seek his mouth, clashing with awkward clicks that rattle in Castiel’s brain.

There is no time for Dean to anticipate when Castiel suddenly pushes off the wall and switches their positions, slamming him where Castiel once was. He makes a noise like a wounded animal and Castiel is on him like a bird of prey swooping down, claiming every breath that becomes a game of challenge and keep away. He has never known a game he’s lost.

Hands are in his hair and Dean gives under his teeth that scrape against his throat, feeling the bob of a swallow and the shudder of a pounding heart. Castiel scratches and bites, hard enough for Dean’s breaths to stop altogether—wholly unrefined, left with recklessness as his name becomes a line of rosary beads, strung along in each breath.

He doesn’t stop chasing Dean’s pulse until he bites too hard and finds himself tasting blood, with a bitter copper that hasn’t graced his tongue quite like his before. Maybe he’s sentimental or maybe it’s not really him, but it doesn’t matter when he acts solely on his own, making a mark that Dean Winchester is sure not to miss.

Dean’s tugging hands at his temples pull him back. A dark mark appears in the shadow of Castiel’s teeth on his throat. With every thud of Dean’s heart the skin quivers, blood starting to clot as Dean stares at him with wide eyes and a hunger Castiel doesn’t recognize.

The surprise in his eyes is legible but Dean never speaks a word of it. Instead, they trail along the line of blood and saliva leaking from the corner of Castiel’s mouth before Dean’s hand comes up to wipe it off, bringing it to his lips. “Didn't know you had it in you, Cas.”

Castiel’s lips quirk in the hint of a smile. In the lamp light, the shadows stretch over its intended shape. “I have a lot of things within me,” he leans in close to Dean’s ear to murmur the words shortly before he peels back and kisses Dean fully for a long moment. When he pulls away, Dean is just as enraptured, if not dazed. “Too bad none of them are you.”

Castiel pulls away, leaving Dean in the wreckage sure to form soon enough. He clears his throat, his normal growl of a tone coming back to him. “Goodnight, Dean.”

Dean’s voice is faraway when Castiel travels down the hall to his own room.

“Goodnight, Cas.”

Within his head, he hears the shout of anger and betrayal from the  _real_ Castiel. Within the confines of his rattling skull and under the pound of an unruly vessel's heart, he stuffs  _Castiel_ back into nonexistence.  _He_ will be the one to lead Dean astray. There is no question to it.

Now to watch his strings tie into place.

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious, this is meant to take place in between 11x10 and 11x11.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
